In Rio de Janeiro, criminal lawyer Mandrake is drawn into a mystery involving the murders of two women, each found with the letter “P” carved into her face. What begins with a missing videotape and a series of seemingly connected crimes soon pulls him deep into a world of professional killers, organized crime, corruption, and violence. After the investigation becomes brutally personal, Mandrake’s search for answers turns into an obsession with revenge. His pursuit takes him beyond Rio and toward the Brazilian-Bolivian border, where knife fighters, criminals, businessmen, and police become part of an increasingly tangled network of secrets. First published in 1983, A Grande Arte is one of Rubem Fonseca’s major novels and one of the defining works of Brazilian crime fiction. Combining noir, detective fiction, psychological tension, and Fonseca’s stark depiction of urban violence, the novel also gave Mandrake (one of the author’s most recurring characters) his most substantial literary appearance.